Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 108, Issue 42, Pages 17296-17301Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1104268108
Keywords
climate-driven economy; Granger Causality Analysis; grain price
Categories
Funding
- University of Hong Kong Seed Funding for Basic Research [10400340]
- Hui Oi Chow Trust
- Research Grants Council of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region [HKU7055/08H]
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Recent studies have shown strong temporal correlations between past climate changes and societal crises. However, the specific causal mechanisms underlying this relation have not been addressed. We explored quantitative responses of 14 fine-grained agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic variables to climate fluctuations from A. D. 1500-1800 in Europe. Results show that cooling fromA. D. 1560-1660 caused successive agro-ecological, socioeconomic, and demographic catastrophes, leading to the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. We identified a set of causal linkages between climate change and human crisis. Using temperature data and climate- driven economic variables, we simulated the alternation of defined golden and dark ages in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere during the past millennium. Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in pre-industrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere.
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